Movies for Grownups Weekend Preview Feb. 7

George Clooney and an all-star cast go in search of stolen art and a bunch of blockheads turn up in the year’s most surprising comedy. Both are fun in their own ways.

The Monuments Men
George Clooney enlists Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bob Balaban and Cate Blanchett to help him patrol Nazi-occupied Europe in search of stolen art works. A greater sense of urgency would have helped push the plot along, but what’s more fun than hanging out with George and his buds for two hours? It’s based on a true story and Clooney, natty in his U.S. Army officer’s uniform, looks more Clark Gable-like than ever.

The Lego Movie
There’s a lot more for grownups here than you’d expect: Packed with gags and clever toy-world references, it’s the story of a nondescript LEGO minifigure (voiced by Craig Berry) saving his world from an evil villain (Will Ferrell) who wants to (gasp!) glue all the blocks together, stifling creativity forever. Written and directed by a bunch of guys from TV Sitcomville (How I Met Your Mother, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), it’s fast, funny, and feel-good.

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The Movies for Grownups YouTube Show

On this week’s show, Andy Garcia and Vera Farmiga find mid-life love; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde suffer a painful breakup, and you could get a free copy of last year’s Best Buddy Movie, Last Vegas!

¬†Still Out There . . .

12 Years a SlaveWinner: Best Movie for Grownups 2014; Nominated for 9 OscarsChiwetel Ejiofor as a free black man kidnapped and sold into slavery leads a powerful cast. Movies from¬†Roots¬†to¬†Django Unchained¬†have shown us the evils of slavery;¬†12 Years a Slave¬†makes us feel the lash.¬†FULL REVIEW

American HustleWinner: Movies for Grownups Best Time Capsule; Nominated for 10 OscarsYou won’t have more fun at the movies than you’ll find here with Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper,¬†Louis C.K. and Jennifer Lawrence as assorted con artists and Feds conspiring to bring down crooked politicians. It’s based on the 1980s Abscam scandal, but we have a feeling writer/director David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) made up all the more hilarious stuff.¬†FULL REVIEW

Anchorman IIDirector Adam McCay and star¬†Will Ferrell¬†swore that the sequel to their 2004 comedy wouldn’t recycle any old gags; the only problem with that¬†Pompous idiot/news anchor Ron Burgundy IS the gag.

August: Osage CountyWinner: Movies for Grownups Best Supporting Actor (Chris Cooper); Nominated for 2 OscarsFried Green Tomatoes¬†meets¬†Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?¬†in this densely scripted, superbly acted screen adaptation of Tracy Letts’ award-winning play. Essentially a fly-on-the-wall look at a monumentally dysfunctional Oklahoma family gathered for a funeral, the film offers megadoses of¬†Meryl Streep¬†as a matriarch who has no filters whatsoever. But the best performances are the more restrained ones from Julia Roberts as her embittered daughter and, especially, Oscar nominees¬†Margo Martindale and Chris Cooper¬†as a long-married couple living under the shadow of a very dark secret.

Captain PhillipsNominated for 6 OscarsTom Hanks¬†gives his best performance in years as the captain of a cargo ship overrun by Somali pirates-but the real revelation is Somali actor Barkhad Abdi. He stands toe-to-toe with Oscar-winner Hanks, who generously allows his unknown costar to unfold a complex, surprisingly vulnerable character.¬†FULL REVIEW

Dallas Buyers Club
Nominated for 6 OscarsAt the height of the 1980s¬†AIDS epidemic, a tough heterosexual Texas electrician (Matthew McConaughey) gets the dread diagnosis – then sets up a lucrative business smuggling alternative anti-AIDS drugs into the state. McConaughey, who has been rising from beefcake idol to accomplished actor, may nab his first Oscar nomination for his compelling performance.

Enough SaidWinner: Movies for Grownups Best Grownup Love StoryWe’ll never forget the late¬†James Gandolfini¬†as the conflicted mobster of¬†The Sopranos,¬†but in this romantic comedy he’s positively cuddly.¬†Julia Louis-Dreyfus¬†plays a woman who discovers that the man of her dreams (Gandolfini) is the ex-hubby of her new close friend.

FrozenNominated for 2 Oscars (Plus 1 nomination for¬†Get a Horse!)By now the animation wizards at Disney have this spunky-young-woman-defeats-evil thing down pat, but the real reason to duck into this film is the Oscar-nominated cartoon short that precedes it.¬†Get a Horse!¬†is a hand-drawn Mickey Mouse cartoon done in the early Disney style circa¬†Steamboat Willie. Director Dorothy McKim even uses archival recordings of¬†Walt Disney¬†himself providing the voice of the world’s favorite rodent.

GravityWinner: Movies for Grownups Best Director (Alfonso Cuaron); Nominated for 10 OscarsStars Sandra Bullock and¬†George Clooney¬†are¬†fine and the film’s visual re-creation of a space voyage is breathtaking (especially in 3-D), but cowriter/director Alfonso Cuaron should have launched with a decent script.¬†FULL REVIEW

HerNominated for 5 OscarsWhat happens if you love your technology just a tad too much? Joaquin Phoenix finds out when he falls hard for the seductive female voice (Scarlett Johansson) in his computer operating system. Writer/director Spike Jonze creates a compelling portrait of a near future when people would rather interact with their machines than each other.

¬†I, Frankenstein
Turns out all that shuffling and mumbling the Frankenstein monster did back in the 1800s was just a matter of growing pains. These days he looks just like Aaron Eckhart, and he runs and does flips like a zipper-necked gymnast. This update has the monster surviving to the present day, when he must do battle with an army of demonic invaders. Best part: Bill Nighy’s on hand.

Inside Llewyn DavisNominated for 2 OscarsWriter/directors Joel and Ethan Coen’s most balanced movie ever¬†is a fond look at the early 1960s Greenwich Villlage folk music scene. Oscar Isaac is irresistibly mopey as the title character,¬† but the real treat comes when Llewlyn hitches a ride to Chicago with a blustery, bloated blues musician played with great aplomb by John Goodman.¬†FULL REVIEW

¬†Jack Ryan: Shadow RecruitTom Clancy’s true-blue CIA agent returns to the screen for a fifth go-round, this time starring Chris Pine in the title role (following in the footsteps of Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck). Pine plays a younger version of Ryan, recruited into the spy biz by a charmingly convincing Kevin Costner. Soon he’s neck-deep in an adventure that takes him from Moscow to New York, going¬†mano-a-mano¬†with an oily villain played by Kenneth Branagh, who also directs. The action is superb, the story moves right along, and it’s all softened nicely by the romance between Ryan and his fiancee (Keira Knightley)-the woman Ryan can’t tell what he does for a living.¬†FULL REVIEW

Mandela: Long Walk to FreedomNominated for 1 OscarIn any other year, Idris Elba’s towering performance as¬†Nelson Mandela¬†would have landed him on anyone’s Best Actor Oscar shortlist.¬†Naomie Harris¬†is at times chillingly intense as his wife Winnie, and director Justin Chadwick (The First Grader) continues his love affair with inspiring, true African stories.

NebraskaWinner: Movies for Grownups Best Actor (Bruce Dern), Best Intergenerational Movie; Nominated for 6 OscarsIn a career-defining performance, Bruce Dern is a slightly befuddled fellow who’s convinced he’s won $1 million in a sweepstakes. Will Forte is the good son who offers to drive him from Montana to Nebraska to claim the dubious prize. Amazing performances all around, directed by Alexander Payne (The Descendants, About Schmidt).¬†FULL REVIEW

PhilomenaWinner: Movies for Grownups Best Actress (Judi Dench); Nominated for 4 OscarsIn a season of extraordinary acting accomplishments,¬†Judi Dench¬†gives the performance of a lifetime as the title character, a woman seeking the son she gave up as a child. Steve Coogan, who also wrote the film’s moving and disarmingly funny script, costars as the investigative reporter who helps unravel a tangle of deceit and corruption. Based on a true story.¬†FULL REVIEW

Saving Mr. BanksWinner: Best Movie for Grownups Who Refuse to Grow Up; Nominated for 1 OscarTom Hanks¬†is Walt Disney and¬†Emma Thompson¬†is Mary Poppins creator P.L. Travers in this magical (and allegedly true) story of how Uncle Walt convinced P.L. to let him bring her creation to the screen. If Thompson lays the prim-and-proper schtick on a bit thick, and if Hanks plays Disney as something of a homespun cartoon of the real mogul, it only adds to the film’s mythical quality. ¬†¬†FULL REVIEW

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Director/star¬†Ben Stiller¬†celebrates the mystery of imagination, the wonder of real-life, and the point at which they intersect in this spectacular comedy adventure loosely based on the classic James Thurber short story.¬†Kristin Wiig¬†plays the adorable object of Mitty’s affection,¬†Shirley MacLaine¬†cameos as the hero’s loving mom, and¬†Sean Penn¬†pops up in a brief but pivotal role as a globetrotting photographer.¬†FULL REVIEW

The Wolf of Wall StreetTeaming for the fifth time with Leonardo DiCaprio, director¬†Martin Scorsese¬†lets loose a cannonade of ¬†sex, drugs, and no-holds-barred avarice in telling the mostly true story of a New York stockbroker who made an outrageous fortune by swindling investors in the 1980s and ’90s. Like his central character, Scorsese once again proves that nothing succeeds like excess.¬†FULL REVIEW